The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on Tuesday approved the resolution plan for Jet Airways submitted by a consortium of UK-based Kalrock Capital Partners and Murari Lal Jalan.
While London-based Kalrock is an alternative investment fund, UAE-based Jalan has a Calcutta background. He began his career in the 1980s in his family’s paper trading business in the city before shifting to Dubai.
The resolution plan has been approved with a caveat. The tribunal has given the new owners 90 days to approach the directorate-general of civil aviation (DGCA) for the restoration of the airline slots.
The aviation regulator has already farmed these out to IndiGo and SpiceJet and has said that these cannot be re-allocated to Jet.
The DGCA in an affidavit told the tribunal Jet does not qualify for the grant of slots on the basis of historic precedence and the allocation would be based on the regulator’s guidelines.
“It is submitted that there can’t be any automatic revival of approvals granted to Jet Airways and re-instatement of slots, which were with Jet Airways and the same would be as per the extant guidelines and regulations/rules,” the DGCA had said in the affidavit .
The tribunal said the historic rights will not be available to Jet but has urged the government to ensure that the resolution plan doesn’t come apart because of the regulator’s intransigence on slot allocation.
The tribunal added that if the DGCA does not allot slots in 90 days, the consortium can come back to it and seek an extension.
Though there is some degree of uncertainty on whether Jet will get back its slots, there are reports of the combine getting an assurance from around 30 airports of slots.
After it suspended operations in April 2019, Jet Airways’ lenders led by the State Bank of India initiated the insolvency proceedings in June 2019.
It was in October 2020 that the committee of creditors (CoC) approved the resolution plan submitted by the consortium.
The stock markets reacted positively to the announcement with the shares of the now defunct airline being locked in at the 5 per cent upper circuit. On the BSE, it ended at Rs 99.45 on Tuesday.
“The consortium maintains its stand that it wants to work alongside the ministry of civil aviation, the DGCA and all its competitors to put Jet Airways back in the skies. ”
Our team will study the written order once issued by the Hon’ble National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) and we will provide a detailed response on the next steps subsequently,’’ the Jalan-Kalrock consortium said.
The airline’s resolution professional Ashish Chhawchharia told PTI that Jet could be back in the skies by the end of this year if everything goes well.
Jet Airways owes Rs 7,453 crore to its financial creditors and Rs 6,658 crore to its operational creditors and more than Rs 359 crore to workmen & employees, among others.
Owner-watch
Kalrock according to its website is an alternative investment adviser, largely active in verticals such as real estate, venture capital and special situations.
In an interview to BloombergQuint in October last year, Manoj Narender Madnani, a board member at Kalrock, had said it would keep Jet Airways as a full service airline and not convert it into a budget carrier. Madnani also disclosed that they had identified candidates for the senior leadership team of the airline, which will be a mix of Indian and foreign aviation industry executives.
Jalan, on the other hand, moved from paper trading in Calcutta to photo imaging and in 2003, acquired Kanoi Paper.
He then moved into other sectors such as real estate and healthcare. Jalan later shifted to Dubai where he pursued the real estate business and made his presence felt in new regions such as Uzbekistan apart from the UAE.
